Sonntag, 26. April 2015

Muckdiving in Bali - Paradies of the little Critters

Bali –
Paradise of the little Monsters

Perfect Camouflage: Frogfish with Amed Scuba

Bali is
heaven for an underwater macrophotographer to discover the unusual
wilde life of little animals perfectly camoulflaged in black vulcano
sand. At some special muck diving places in Bali you might start to
understand how the unattractive term of "muck dive" could
actually attract so many photographers from all over the world.
Within cloudy and muddy water the seemingly plain, lacking in coral,
mucky, sandy bottom with of this dive site lives a vast and
concentrated populaton of very rare and unusual underwater creatures
and bottom-dwellers seldom, or never, seen anywhere else in the
world. Target our photographic hunting are little bizar looking
marine animals called critters.

Artist of Transformation: Mimik Octopus with Amed Scuba

Main object
of desire of many experienced underwater photographers is the artist
of transformation in the world of animals. The famous Mimik Octopus.
Various other unusual and beautiful animals join him at this muck
places. We encountered banggai cardinal fish, fingered dragonets,
longspine wasp fish, ghostpipe fish, leave fish, ribbon eals,
porcelain craps, imperator shrimp, tiger shrimp, coleman shrimp,
honeymoon shrimps, moray eels, blennies, various kinds of scorpion
fish like the amboin scorpionfish, nudibranches. We also encountered
many frogfish, seahorses, coconut octopuses, seamoth, sepia and the
elusive mimic octopus which flet in only 7 meters at the first sight
of us.

This oddly shaped animals create the charme of Puri Jati, Secret
Bay, Seraya, Melasti, Amed, Tulamben, the Jetty and lots of other
unknown diving sites of Bali. And they offer a perfect motive range
for every macro underwater photographer.

Honeymoon Shripm in the anemone, Amed Scuba

Muck diving has little in common with the cliche of tropical
diving sites. Instead of colourful coral gardens with a huge amound
of different colourful fish species and shoals of fish the diver will
find moody and cloudy visibilities and less inspiring underwater
landscapes. At first sight there will be bleak black lava sand
riddled and covered with different kind of wast like car weels and
the rest of Balinese ceremonies until plastic.

Kuda Seahorse in Puri Jati

But those who love this kind of diving are sliding in slow-motion
careful over this sandy bottom and examine every stone and every
waste to look for perfectly camoulflaged little critters which might
be hidden under it.

The Critters are perfectly Camouflaged

Next to the Lembeh Strait in the north of Sulawesi, Bali is
described in insider´s tip as one of the best dive areas in the
world, the mecca for muck diving and heaven for underwater
macro-photographers. The muck diving sites in Bali have a lot of
shared qualities with Lembeh. Muck-Diving means a kind of mood diving
and for underwater photographers this diving spots are heaven – the
heaven of the little critters.